Exploring the representation of

disability in Animation Bryony Preen, Elliott Thompson and Adam Toth

Core examples that will be used within our

essay•Adam Elliot’s Clayographies; Mary and Max, Uncle, Cousin, Brother and Harvie Krumpet.

•Aardmans Creature discomforts - including the ‘making of’.

• We will also use examples of animated sitcoms as a comparison, these would include: South Park and Family Guy.

Adam Elliot’s Clayographies

• Adam Elliot has a very distinctive style in animation. He takes a dark subject that people usually feel uncomfortable to watch or talk about and makes it comical, yet moving and accessible for all to watch. His work is very cleverly narrated and animated to be informative and very open about disability.

• The stop motion animation is very simplistic and doesn’t draw away from the film. Adam Elliot’s short films have clearly influenced his feature film- Mary and Max (2009): This is another feature that we will be discussing in our essay.

• His characters are very moving and to us, are more convincing than actual actors- this is also a theme we will be exploring in our essay : Actors Vs Characters.

Mary and MaxAs we are using

Adam Elliot’s shorts as our core texts we thought it would be beneficial to see his

first feature production ‘Mary and

Max’. This is a screenshot

from an review written on the wiki.

This film will be useful in building up

a wider picture of Elliot’s work and as it is also a recent piece can give us an insight into how disabilities are represented in

today’s films.

Creature Discomforts

As well as Adam Elliot’s Clayographies we’re also looking to incorporate analysing the ad series Creature Discomforts.

Creature Discomforts deals with the serious issue of disability in the UK in a more comfortable and open manner. As opposed to Adam Elliot who’s theme of disability

compliments the narrative of the film rather than explicitly taking centre stage, Creature Discomforts is primarily about raising awareness of disability and the people, who are in

these circumstances, feelings. Often issues are thrown in our face in television adverts and can make the audience feel guilty and uncomfortable instead of being informative and persuasive about donations.

Creature Discomforts however, shares a similarity with Adam Elliot’s work in that it takes difficult issues to do with health and inform people about them through entertainment. Another point of interest around Creature Discomforts is that it takes, what was at the

time, a popular and award-winning series (Creature Comforts) and utilises this reputation to launch a charitable organisation without compromising itself artistically.

Finally, we have also looked at research with regards disabled characters in animated sitcom, a format that is seen by a wide audience and is screened throughout a large

amount of the year.In particular we would be looking at the regular characters featured in Family Guy (Joe

Swanson) and South Park (Timmy & Jimmy).By looking at these characters and critically analysing them against Adam Elliot’s works and Creature Discomforts, we hope to analyse the difference in portrayal of characters

featured in mass audience works (i.e. the animated sitcom)

It’s important to note that this is only preliminary research and may not be included in the final essay, it all depends on how strong and weighty the analysis of Adam Elliot and

Creature Discomforts is.

Animated Sitcoms

History of Disability in the Media

• Carried out research on the media as a whole to see how disabled people are being represented in general.• As the study shows – not too positively in 1991.

• By 2006 disabled Characters fitted intoA stereotype, seen as a victim or asa threat. • Not very visible in Animation at all.